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More mosquitoes? Answer should come in next two weeks

Staff Reports

Boone News-Republican

It’s not clear whether all the rain and flooding across central Iowa will lead to a boost in the mosquito population this year.

Lyric Bartholomay, an Iowa State University entomology professor and director of the ISU Medical Entomology Laboratory said it’s difficult to predict how the rainy weather will affect mosquitoes, which lay their eggs in water and spend the first stages of development there.

It may make sense that that would mean there will be more mosquitoes this year, but Bartholmay said that’s not always the case.

Powerful currents created when rivers and streams swell with water can often wash away developing mosquitoes. On the other hand, standing water is an idea environment for the pesky insects, she said.

“The earliest stages of a mosquito’s lifecycle depend on water,” Bartholomay said. “So a lot of standing water left behind for a period of time following a flood can create good habitat for them to develop if the temperatures are right. But it’s difficult to tell exactly how mosquitoes will respond to a particular flooding event.”

Central Iowans won’t have to wait long to know. The answer should become clear in about two weeks, Bartholomay said.

Bartholomay said the mosquitoes that most Iowans will notice this time of year tend to be “nuisance species,” which do not carry viruses such as West Nile. The species that are capable of transmitting diseases to humans are more common later in the summer, she said.

“At this time of the year, and particularly since we’ve had a chilly spring, we haven’t had real opportunity for many mosquitoes to be on the wing and out amplifying the population,” she said. “Whatever results from recent flooding will initially be nuisance species that were left behind last year or in years previous.”

To help prevent mosquitos in the city of Boone, public works crews have already begun spraying for mosquitos and will continue until the first hard freeze of the year.